Topic: Gravity towline to divert asteroids away from Earth

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

The US spacemen Edward Lu and Stanley Love propose sending up a huge rocket to "tow" away any such objects.

Their vehicle would simply hover over the asteroid and use gravity as a "towline" to move it out of danger.

A 20-tonne craft could safely deflect an asteroid 200m across in about a year of such "towing", Lu and Love report in the journal Nature.

Alternately of course you might use the same system to move one to a convient Earth orbit if it were at a correct velocity and course for the adjustment already.  Orbital mining.

[prometheus]

I'd sooner keep it as far away from Earth as possible to be honest, but in any case, I reckon that it's gonna be a while yet before we can alter an asteroids Delta v enough to put it in a safe parking orbit...

[CaptJosh]

I think that mass drivers are probably better suited for moving an asteroid into a convenient orbit. Simply attach them to the surface of the asteroid, and they scoop out chunks of mass from the surface and fling them into space in order to change delta-vee. The grav towline idea, however, is emminently suitable for moving dangerous objects away from potential collision courses.